iRobot Roomba 105 Vac Robot Vacuum - Easy to use, Intense Power-Lifting Suction, LiDAR Navigation, Multi-Surface Cleaning, Cleans in Neat Rows, Self-Charging

Why it's worth it

The Roomba 105 Vac skips mopping and self-emptying but keeps LiDAR navigation and a multi-surface brush. If you just want hair picked up every day without a giant dock, this covers it.

The single best thing you can do for pet hair is run a robot every day, and this is a simple machine to build that habit around. Wirecutter's survey data found that owners running daily schedules report 40 to 60 percent less visible hair accumulation than owners running the same machines two or three times a week. Frequency beats raw power. A modest robot on a daily schedule outperforms a flagship you run on weekends.

ClearView LiDAR is the surprise here, since mapping used to be a premium-tier feature. It builds a floor plan in a single pass and lets you target specific rooms and set keep-out zones from the app. Camera-only navigation systems typically need two or three mapping runs and struggle in dim rooms, per PCMag's comparative work. LiDAR doesn't care about lighting, which matters if the robot runs while you're at work with the blinds drawn.

From our review of 7 robot vacuums for pet hair, by David Sinclair, Managing Editor

What we like

• +The single best thing you can do for pet hair is run a robot every day, and this is a simple machine to build that habit around
• +ClearView LiDAR is the surprise here, since mapping used to be a premium-tier feature
• +The three-stage system pairs a multi-surface brush with an edge-sweeping brush, and iRobot rates suction at 70 times that of the…
• +You give up mopping and self-emptying, and that's the whole trade

What to know

• –The bin is small and there's no dock to empty it into
• –Suction and brush aggression are modest
• –There's no mopping and no pet waste detection